Firelight
by Laura of Maychoria
Summary: Third-year basketball captain Furihata reflects on the difficulties caused by Seirin's famous light-and-shadow duo, the Kagami brothers. (Come Morning Light tag)


A/N: Prompt fic! From ptw30: If possible, can you write a story from Kuroko no Basuke about Taiga and Tetsu in their third year at Seirin? Thanks!

Because you called them Taiga and Tetsu, I'm presuming you want another fic set in the CML 'verse. I apologize if I misread the prompt, but here, you get a loose collection of headcanons anyway.

* * *

On the whole, Furihata liked being the captain of Seirin's basketball team. He had been flustered when the retiring third-years had told him, last year, that they were passing the responsibility on to him, but Hyuuga and Coach Riko had convinced him that he was the only suitable person. No one wanted someone with Kagami Taiga's temper as the captain of anything, and poor Tetsu would have too much trouble getting people to notice him, despite how much he had changed and grown over the last two years. Fukuda and Kawahara were willing to lend support, but looked panicked at the mere suggestion of taking responsibility.

"You've grown a lot, Furihata," Coach Riko said cheerfully, slapping him on the back. "Everyone trusts you and will follow your lead. Let the idiots take the spotlight while you remain the pillar of the team. I'll still be coaching when I can get away from university, and you can lead the team in drills and exercises the rest of the time."

Then they left, abandoning him to deal with the team alone.

And well, it really wasn't that bad. Most of the time. Furihata was confident enough to lead exercises and drills, at least, and on the rare occasions when he felt the need to scold someone, it usually worked out fine. The second-years and new first-years were rather in awe of them, the original team who had beaten the Generation of Miracles at the Winter Cup two years ago and since then consistently placed in the top five teams in Japan. Even with part of the original line-up graduated now, they still had Taiga and Tetsu, the famous light-and-shadow duo of Seirin.

If Furihata's peers sometimes snickered at him when he tried to be captain-like, especially Kawahara, he could handle that. Taiga always took orders to heart, so eager he was to improve even after all this time, and Tetsu nodded seriously and respectfully. After a couple of months to settle in, being a leader turned out to be so bad.

No, the problem wasn't the team. The Seirin basketball club was a great team. Furihata loved his team. The problem was...everyone else.

Because they had Kagami Taiga and Kagami Tetsuya, the famous light-and-shadow duo of Seirin.

Furihata's first inkling of approaching storm came early in the school year, when he happened to overhear the conversation of two first-year girls. He was searching for a book in the school library and heard them whispering in the next aisle. At first he tried to ignore them, not wanting to eavesdrop, but then a certain name caught his attention and he went still, his ears pricking.  
"That Kagami-kun on the basketball team, though..."

The other girl giggled. "He's handsome, isn't he?"

The first girl hummed. "I would call him pretty, myself."

"Pretty? Really?" Second girl was shocked. "Well, if you say so."

"I do." First girl sighed.

"And he's so bold and strong and amazing at basketball! I hope we get to watch him in many, many games."

"Oh yes, he is certainly amazing. Kind of hard to keep your eyes on him, though..."

"You think so?" Second girl was shocked again. "But he draws your eyes like no one else!"

Brief silence. "Well, anyway, I bet he would be the sweetest boyfriend, always talking gently and being so very kind and polite."

"Eh, I do think Kagami-kun would be kind, but I think he'd be a bit more boisterous as a boyfriend. But if anyone ever bothered you, he would knock them down."

"I think Kagami-kun is more the kind to speak reasonably to anyone he disagreed with."

"Reasonably? Kagami-kun? I really can't imagine that happening! He's far too strong and rough and hot-tempered to be reasonable when someone irritated him or bothered his girlfriend."

The two of them were silent for a long moment.

"We are talking about the same Kagami-kun, aren't we?" the first girl asked slowly.

"There can't really be two of them, can there? He's such an imposing figure! How could there possibly be more than one?"

"Well...let's say the full name of the person we're thinking of and see if we agree."

"All right. One, two..."

"Three!" they both said together, then "Kagami Tetsuya," said the first girl, and "Kagami Taiga," said the second.

Another silence, this one barely a second.

"There really are two of them?!"

"I didn't even know a Kagami Tetsuya existed!"

"And I don't understand what you could possibly see in Kagami Taiga! What a loud-mouthed idiot!"

"That's what I like about him!"

At this point the girls were loud enough that a librarian had to interfere, and Furihata crept stealthily away, his face burning. This was going to be troublesome. He could see that now. It didn't bother him that even as the basketball captain, he hadn't merited a mention. But those two…

It wasn't the Kagami brothers' fault. They just wanted to play basketball, and they happened to be good at it. Taiga's potential had blossomed into a positive powerhouse over the last two years, and Tetsu had perfected his misdirection and his trick moves, always knowing when to stay in the shadows and when he needed to step out of them for a moment. That Seirin hadn't managed to win another Inter-High or Winter Cup since the first year was simply because those other five prodigies had stepped up their game at the same time, and they all had excellent teams to back them up. The champion was never consistent, though. It was always a heavily contested win, and it was always exciting to watch and to be involved.

Seirin was still amazing, and they still drew plenty of attention and admiration. This year, Furihata had to learn how to fend off reporters and fans, because he was the captain now and everyone expected him to have a comment. No, the Kagami brothers didn't have a special diet. In fact, they both had an unfortunate taste for a certain fast food place. All of Seirin had the same training, which Furihata was willing to describe for anyone who asked. Well, sure, the Kagami brothers sometimes stayed later and worked harder than the others, but other times they went home to spend time with their dad, so it wasn't like they were fiends for practice, either. Yes, Seirin was planning to have a training camp this year. In the mountains. No, Furihata would not tell the asker where the training camp would be.

It was exhausting at first, but Furihata got used to it. He grew more confident about responding to questions, and even at times managed to foist it on Kawahara, calling him the vice-captain and saying he trusted him to answer for the team. (A side bonus of this was that Kawahara stopped snickering when Furihata acted captain-like around him, because he didn't want to be stuck with this duty even more.)

Furihata counted it a win when he managed to keep the outsiders from bothering the rest of the team. Especially Tetsu, who had never quite gotten used to extra attention. Tetsu was happy in the company of his brother and his team, but he still tended to tense up around strangers, especially when they got too pushy with him and started to invade his personal space. This was a situation to be avoided at all costs, because when Tetsu got uncomfortable, Taiga got protective. And when Taiga got protective, he got loud. And intimidating. And a bad image for the team. He puffed up like an angry cat, not to put too fine a point on it. A very large, very strong, very scary cat. Say, a tiger.

So really, it was just best to keep Tetsu safe from prying eyes as much as possible. They had all gotten pretty good at it. Even the first-years, after a couple of months to figure things out, realized that this was a goal for all of Seirin: Keep Kagami Tetsuya Safe and Comfortable at All Times. Furihata considered the new kids to be well-trained and an integral part of the team when he saw them running interference for Tetsu at a practice game with Kaijo, interrupting a couple of strangers who were trying to approach their phantom man and keeping them occupied with several long and involved stories about the team's training methods.

They were well-rewarded afterward when Tetsu thanked them in his usual soft-spoken way, his shoulders relaxed and his eyes relieved. He even smiled, which made the first-years (and everyone else) melt like snowballs in the sun. And the next day Taiga gave them homemade bentos packed with his signature gyoza, which was just the icing on the cake. Furihata tried not to be jealous, at that point. Taiga's gyoza were really, really good.

But Taiga's hospitality had not diminished with the addition of a brother and a father at home. He had the team over just as often as he had before, and the time was even more jovial and relaxed. Kagami-san was delighted to see friends of his sons, always asking questions and grinning widely at stories that showed Taiga and Tetsu in a good light (of which there were many). In his home, Tetsu was the most relaxed and at ease Furihata had ever seen him, smiling and laughing often. It was a pleasure to see, every single time. And Taiga's cooking only improved as he matured. Fukuda told him that he should consider being a chef if basketball didn't work out, which made their giant tiger blush, while his father grinned and his brother nodded solemnly.

"Actually, Taiga-nii put fireman on his career survey," Tetsu said after a moment, his voice thoughtful.

Furihata didn't even blink because yeah, of course Tetsu knew what Taiga put on his career survey. "Really?" He looked at Taiga. "You didn't put 'a long, successful career in the NBA?'"

Taiga chewed thoughtfully. "Of course that comes first."

"But you want to save people, senpai?" one of the first-years asked with typically starry eyes.

Taiga rubbed the back of his head and blushed even more, but he also nodded.

"Why not a policeman, then?" Fukuda asked.

Taiga shrugged. "That would be great too, I guess. But fire...I dunno. It's wild, right? Uncontrollable. It's scary. I want to be able to stand up to something like that, pull people out if they need to be pulled out. Bad guys are scary, too, and policemen are really brave to stand up to that kind of threat, but... I don't know. It's different."

They were silent for a moment. Furihata looked at Taiga, then Tetsu. Pulling people out of scary, dangerous situations...

Suddenly, he had a lump in his throat.

Kawahara grinned and nudged Taiga's elbow. "But what if you have to save a dog from a burning building, huh? How would you handle that?"

Taiga paled and gulped, but Tetsu gave Kawahara a glare. "Taiga-nii would be fine, of course. He got used to Nigou after only a few weeks."

At the mention of his name, Nigou looked up from where he was curled up in his dog bed in the corner of the room, ears perking and tail thumping against the floor. It was true that it hadn't taken long for Kagami-san to talk the building manager here (previously very firm on the "no pets allowed" rule) to let Nigou stay in the building. If Furihata remembered right, there had been some talk about Nigou being a therapy animal necessary for the well-being of a traumatized child, and something about a very scary lawyer. In any case, it had worked, and Nigou came home to Tetsu and his new family only a few months after Tetsu's adoption.

Everyone had thought that Taiga would have problems. His phobia of dogs was pretty severe, and though he had started to warm up to Nigou slightly, it had been more along the lines of "This particular dog might not actually want to kill me, maybe," than "Wow, dogs are cool, I can't believe I was ever scared of them." If anything was going to test Taiga's devotion to his new little brother, surely that would be it.

But when Furihata asked Tetsu about it later, Tetsu had just stared at him with big, uncomprehending eyes. "Taiga-nii is fine with Nigou," he said, as if there'd never been any question at all. "When he gets nervous, we talk about it, maybe give him a little space. Nigou is smart and knows when not to trouble him. And we hug a lot. It's the same way he helps me with what I'm scared of. He's getting better all the time. And so am I."

Which...shouldn't really have been a surprise, Furihata guessed. The Kagami brothers' kindness to each other knew no bounds. Maybe Tetsu even found it comforting to know that he wasn't the only one who needed help to recover from mental wounds.

It wasn't a complete cure. Taiga still got nervous around strange dogs they met on the street, and Tetsu still sometimes got nervous around strange people in the same sort of situation. But they shielded each other and soothed each other, and the team helped where they could, and on the whole everything went almost stunningly well about ninety percent of the time.

So of course now Taiga just nodded solidly. "If a dog needed to be saved from a burning building, of course, I would do it. I wouldn't be able to face Tetsu-chan later if I didn't."

Tetsu smiled at this, and the conversation moved on, with the others asking Tetsu what he would do if basketball didn't work out. "Teach children," he said without hesitation, and Taiga nodded knowingly.

"He already does, you know," Taiga said when the others looked at him with raised eyebrows. "At that playground down the street. The neighbor kids are all very fond of Tetsu-sensei and love learning basketball from him."

Furihata didn't know where Tetsu found time for such pursuits between school, club activities, and evenings with his family, but it shouldn't have surprised him. He already knew that no matter how much Tetsu gave and gave and gave, he always found a way to give a little more. Despite everything he'd suffered, everything he'd lost, he still found meaning in supporting everyone around him.

Not unlike Taiga, honestly.

So yes, being the captain of the Seirin basketball club could be a pain. The Kagami brothers drew too much attention, and it caused a lot of trouble for everyone. But really, when it came down to it, Furihata wouldn't trade his job for anything in the world.

 **The End**


End file.
